بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيمIn the name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful.

Wife's right to punish her husband

The Quran gives the wife the right to punish her husband if he goes outside the parameters she gives him. It provides women with instructions: "But those whose perverseness ye fear, admonish them and remove them into bed-chambers and beat them; but if they submit to you, then do not seek a way against them.Quran $:34

بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيمIn the name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful.

Imagine a troop of elephants, they are all the same, except two who are different, their difference is that they are a gay couple. Other elephants decide that they need to be killed and so they kill them and leave them dead behind. Humans watched the happening and concluded that animals have ruthless instincts.

Happily, this is not the case in real life. In real life other animals don’t kill other animals for their sexual orientation. The only animal that does that is the human and we do it in the name of God, an entity considered all loving and compassionate.

Four days ago Julhas Mannan, the editor of Rupban, the only LGBT magazine of Bangladesh, was hacked to death by humans who believed they were acting in the name of Allah. How did this happen? Where did they get this belief? Well, it goes back to the bible, to Moses to be exact:"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”Leviticus 20:13

Sigh. My first thought is: well, where are the arguments? What is the reason behind this, but something tells me I need to read further in this Leviticus.Just some other examples:“A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.”Leviticus 20:27“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head.”Leviticus: 20:09

Seems that this monotheistic God is somewhat of a harsh fellow. Come on, putting mediums and kids who curse their parents to 'death'? The difficult thing is that the punishments were sent to an audience that lived thousands of years ago. I've followed courses at the department of Middle Eastern studies at the university of Leiden and remember one peculiar course in which a professor of prehistoric Arabia explained a text with laws that seemed very harsh for the modern reader, but were at that time perfectly normal and most of the time a paper tiger. The punishments were meant to scare off, not to be positively applied.

Now back to Islam. The Quran contains a lot of positive law; sometimes it goes into details, like with inheritance law, where women inherit half of what the men get. What I imagine is that the positive laws in the Quran were applied in actuality during Muhammad’s (pbuh) time in Medina. But on the issue of the biblical ‘sodomy’ the Quran refrains from giving any positive laws. This implies that the first Muslims never punished gays in their community, if they had, then the punishment would have been detailed in the Quran.The only time that the Quran mentioned gay sexuality is with the story of Lot. But Lot’s story is one of many Biblical stories that the Quran mentions and must be understood in it’s context. Lot is part of a group of prophets that the Quran mentions as examples of other prophets who, like Muhammad, were faced with and evil society to whom they were sent. Lot like, Nuh, Hud, Salh and Shuayb were used as predecessors of Muhammad (pbuh). Lot was sent to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, like Muhammad was sent to Mekka and Medina. Sodom and Gomorrah were dangerous cities with where robberies, rapes and crime were rampant. Lot came to them with the message of God, but like Muhammad, he was ridiculed. Then God sent two handsome angels as his visitors, but people from his city came and took them away from him so they could rape them. By doing this, they turned Gods wreath against them and God decided to destroy the two cities. The story does not talk about two gay men loving each other. It’s about criminality, rape of two young men, presumably pedophilia that was punished by God.

Unlike the Bible that was very clear about the punishment of gay sexuality, the Quran remains silent. Allah turned its wreath on violence and rape, not on gay sexuality.

Then where did the murderers of Julhas Mannan get their inspiration?The answer is Hadith, which is the Arab word for gossip:Narrated by Abdullah ibn Abbas: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.

It seems that the one doing the narrating has no clue about the Quranic message of the story of Lot, namely that it was about rape. How on earth would God punish the Angels to whom the rape would have been done? It is clear that these are indeed gossips. They offer no explanation, nor any other information on why gays should be punished. Muslim clerics knew this, so they used another stick to hang their punishment on; adultery:“The woman or man found guilty of sexual intercourse – lash each one of them with a hundred lashes, and do not be taken by pity for them in the religion of Allah, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment”. Quran 24:2

Compared to the Bible, which at the time of the Prophet Muhammad was a big authority on religious matters, the Quran seems mild:"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death".Leviticus 20:10

The Quran was more compassionate then the Bible, but fact remains that the Quran addresses itself to an audience that lived almost two thousand years ago. Adultery is no fun, but a 100 lashes? For real? Back to my professor, presumably the threats in the Quran were paper tigers, meant to scare off people, not meant to be actually realized. But why should learned Islamic scholars take a backdoor to create a death sentence? Because giving 100 lashes doesn’t kill someone. Especially not if you use a lash made of silk or feathers. Clearly the Quran gave this surah to humanize the Bible. The Islamic message that Muhammad (pbuh) brought was one of compassion. On and on this is hammered upon. Where the Judeo-Christian Bible killed gays, the Quran remained silent about any punishment. Where the Judeo-Christian bible killed those who cheated, the Quran ‘only’ lashed them. Where the Judeo-Christian Bible killed those who cursed their parents, the Quran only tells us to respect them:“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents.If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honor.” (Quran 17:23)

Then how could the followers of this compassionate God hack an LGBQT activist into pieces?It seems like a paradox, but there is more. Although the Quran is the most compassionate of the three monotheistic religions, still its followers are not. Especially not: it’s religious leaders. Although Christianity and Judaism have evolved throughout the centuries, because of the Enlightenment andoverall modernization of its scriptures, the Quran has not. The Quranic scholars did not only notdevelop intellectually, they actually went backwards, mainly thanks to the influence of Gulf-backedWahabism and the Muslim Brotherhood. Our alarm bells should have rinkled whenYusuf-al Qaradawi talked on al Jazeera and was presented as the biggest authority of Islam, the same man who said on national television that gays should be thrown off buildings and ‘disobedient’ women should be beaten (see video below).

​To be honest, I don’t blame Al Qaradawi. He can only use the brains he has gotten and think with the education he has gotten. He cannot exceed his limits. I don’t blame Al Jazeera for inviting him to the studio and putting him on the world stage as the authority of Islam. I don’t blame the Wahhabis either, I don’t blame the Gulf who pump their oil money into Wahhabi madrassa’s all over the world. I don’t blame the killers of Julhas. They think that they are acting in the name of God, because some imam (who has been brainwashed by Gulf-money) told them so. Then who should I blame?I blame myself. I blame myself for not speaking up louder. I blame myself for not speaking in the microphone against Tariq Ramadan’s homophobia when I had the chance to (I attended his lecture). I blame myself for not sending Al Qaradawi a letter of disapproval. I blame myself for not acting on the message Allah has sent me to give, because unlike Julhas Mannan, I am a coward.

بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيمIn the name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful.

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,When the funds are low and the debts are highAnd you want to smile, but you have to sigh,When care is pressing you down a bit,Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.Life is queer with its twists and turns,As every one of us sometimes learns,And many a failure turns aboutWhen he might have won had he stuck it out;Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–You may succeed with another blow,Success is failure turned inside out–The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,And you never can tell how close you are,It may be near when it seems so far;So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.​– Edgar A. Guest

بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيمIn the name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful.

“Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you.” we heard him say.As we climbed the stairs he kept on repeating his mantra: “Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you.”

We were in the aftermath of the earthquake in The Rif, or Riff (Tamazight: Arrif), a mainly mountainous region of northern Morocco, visiting a Judge who will unveil the entire problem of the Arab world in one convivial conversation.

His office looked like the office of an imam. Multiple perfume-holders of silver and copper were placed on an altar behind him. Copper carved candleholders held white unused candles that had softened and bended in all kinds of dancing shapes. The Judge looked like an imam from el Andalus. A chestnut brown beard, brown woollen Jellaba (Moroccan traditional dress), traditional perfume was all over him and in the room. On the table next to him lied cookies and a bottle of mandarin juice. He kept on asking us to take a drink and a cookie. Everybody refused, but I, being a Dutch Moroccan, could not refuse a free cookie, so I took one. Not taken back by our refusal of the drink, he poured our glasses and offered each one of us a glass. You would expect a judge to have an assistant. Even the lawyers here have assistants, but not this one, he did everything himself. He walked back into the kitchen and brought back a glass of minttea.

“اَهْلاًوَسَهْلاً (ahlan wa sahlan), Welcome everybody”, he said with a clasp with his hands. Before starting his work, he asked each one of us about ourselves. He started with me. I told him I was an art student with an interest in the Arab world. I also added that I was a female imam and that I helped women online. When I said that, surprisingly he asked me if I could give him some advice. The visitors with me said that I only advised women. He was not impressed by their answer, me neither. I told him I help everybody, men and women and that I love Morocco, it’s hospitality, warmness, the sun, the beach, the great food etc, but there was one thing that needs some help: women in our country are second-class citizen. With utter disbelief he looked me in the eyes: “Hahahahaaa it’s the women who are first class citizen here, the men are the ones who are suffering.” Silence in the room. I didn’t know what to respond. His reaction seemed outworldly and crazy, “how could I respond to this?” I thought to myself. The conversation evolved to another topic. I looked through the room. A mystical looking painting was hanged in the center of the front wall. A colorful bird inside a golden cage. Underneath it an elusive text in Arabic, I couldn’t understand the intrinsicate calligraphy. Something that started with Baraka, which is Arabic for bountifulness, a world used very often in the daily Arabic speaking rituals. I wanted to ask him about it, but felt it was not the right moment yet, so I waited. One girl in our group was dressed in the latest Dubai fashion: a black Abaya, with pink sunglasses and black gloves. The gloves were to cover her hands from male glances. She looked like the perfect muslimah. I felt a bit underdressed without a veil in my leggings and short dress; unconsciously I pulled my short dress over my knees. I was an imam after all, so I needed to look like one, whatever that may be. Behind me I saw the sign with his name and title. I took a black pen and started to write the name on a paper, I felt I needed to keep myself busy.

A MAN CAN HIT HIS WIFE, HE HITS HER, BECAUSE HE LOVES HERAt the ending of his work he turned back to me. It fascinated him that I thought women were oppressed here in Morocco. “They are not”, he said, after which he offered me another drink. I thanked him and asked him about the painting. He responded in Arabic. “This painting is made for me, because my work entails a lot of marriages. The bird inside the cage is the bridegroom waiting on his bride for the wedding night, but the bride has flown away, she escaped and left him alone behind.” Everybody laughed. The eccentric judge explained it further. The men here in Morocco are suffering immensely. In the past we had Hassan II. Feminists came to pressure him to change the Mudawana (Islamic family law), but he denied their request, it was not up to him to change divine Islamic law. Then he beated with his palm on the table, “but now his son Muhammad 6 is much milder, they were able to pressure him into changing the law. So now you see forty percent of all marriages here done by ignorant girls around 18 years old, marrying without their father’s permission. Their poor dad doesn’t know whom they are going to marry. My own daughter can decide one day or the other to marry her boyfriend and go with him to another country without me knowing anything about it! In the past we had very few divorces. Men rarely divorced their wives and families were kept together, but now everybody divorces. Women come here and can divorce their husbands in one week. Then they are free to do what they want and the men stay behind with the bills.” I responded that many women divorce, because of abuse. This did not impress him: “A man can hit his wife.” I didn’t believe what I was hearing. “Yes, a man can hit his wife, he hits her, because he loves her!” I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry about what I was hearing. He was pleading for violence on women while being in a group with only women. I chose to laugh. My mother warned me in Dutch that I shouldn’t fight with him, because the Judge had trouble with his heart. I was not at all planning to fight with him, I actually felt sorry for him. He honestly believed men were victims. I repeated what he said: “so a man who loves his woman beats her?” I could barely hold my laugh. “Yes, he loves her if he beats her. She needs to be corrected. If you love your child and your child does something wrong, don’t you beat that child for it’s own well being?” My mother was looking at me anxiously, so I nodded. “Yes, you beat your child to because you love him”, he answered. If I saw my son dealing in drugs with his friends. Who will I beat, my son or his friends? My son of course, because I love him!” It was almost Dohr, the Friday-prayer time, he had to go to the mosque, but the topic was very dear to him, so he finished what he was saying, even though my mother reminded him of the prayer time. He told us an anecdote with his wife. He called his wife from work asking her to send their son to bring them his judicial clothes. She refused his request, because she believed it was too rainy for their son to walk through the muddy road to the courthouse. When he insisted on her to send their son with the clothes immediately, she disconnected the call. His breath started to become more heavy and tense as he remembered what happened. “I was boiling!” He went back to the house, took her mobile phone and threw it powerfully to the wall. It broke in 1001 pieces. “I bought you this phone woman, how dare you put the phone down on me!!” “If I didn’t break that phone I would have given her a beating!” He went back to his chair, breathing heavily.

MEN HERE SIT IN A GOLDEN CAGEHe came with another anecdote. One day his best friend came to his office. He told him he just came out of jail; his wife had put him there. She made him terribly angry, he didn’t want to beat her, so he broke everything in the house to easy his wreath. When he went to his bedroom to repose, the police entered his room. His wife called them up and accused him of beating her. Once the police saw that everything in the house was broken, they concluded that she was right. “They took him to prison and he stayed there for four days!” “Courts here are filled with women who want to divorce. The Moroccan family is broken. Women have their freedom; they don’t know what they are doing. The family pays the bill and the biggest bill is paid by the man.” I took another glance to the painting with the caged bird. Men here sit in a golden cage, but the burden to sit in a golden cage alone is terrible. There is no communication between men and their wives. It’s difficult to communicate with an oppressed, ignorant woman whose sole existence is to serve a man and his children. He asked me about my brothers, “They beat their wives too right, because they love them!” I responded denying, “my brothers love their wives, they will never beat them.” His look was disappointed. “A wife should be corrected, just like a child. This is true love.” It was time for the mosque. I felt very sorry for this judge. He was a very hospitable, warm and charitative personality, but he had to live with the burden of having to live with illiterate and stupid women whom he and his system have created. This experience gave me more confidence that female imams are really the answer to Islam's problems. These men need us more then they ever will realize. He greeted us warmly: "Fi Amanullah (may Allah protect you)" – he said, he was saying good-bye to us. I though to myself that Allah will indeed protect us, if we women decide to protect ourselves, instead of relying on the men. The Earthquake must have been a Goddess that reminds us that we shouldn't let the men walk all over us, if we tremble, they will shake.